Diane looked at her mother. Helen sat in the armchair by the window, black cardigan, silver hair, the will's widow and its first reader. "And you're okay with selling. With giving her forty percent."
"I'm okay with surviving," Helen said. "I'm okay with not spending the next five years in court proving your father was capable of signing his name. I'm okay with making a choice that lets both of us leave this house without burning it."
Diane stood and walked to the mantel. She picked up the 1984 photograph, looked at it for a long time, and set it face down. "I need a week. Maybe two. If I agree, we sell. If I don't, I contest — and Mom, I mean it, I will contest even if you hate me for it."
"I won't hate you," Helen said. "I may disagree with you. That is allowed."
Diane agreed on the eleventh day.
She called Helen from her townhouse with Walter audible in the background, complaining about something only cats understand. "Sixty-forty. Written agreement. She talks to me once more if I have questions, and then we never have to share a holiday. The house goes on the market in May. And Mom — I want Dad's desk. The one in the den. Not for sentimental reasons. For kindling. Metaphorically."
Helen laughed, surprising herself. The laugh sounded like a door opening in a room that had been sealed. "You can have the desk. You can have the moose salt and pepper shakers. You can have every fishing lure in the garage. We are going to empty this place like people who intend to live afterward."